The middle school held its annual spelling bee last week during the half day. Students competed in heated rounds to show their capacity to spell and pronounce complicated words with numerous silent and non-phonetic letters.  Eighth grader Adelaide Pfeiffer saved the day, with her pithy letter choices, nabbing first place, followed by Reva Kelly and Ollie Patterson. Close behind were alternates Lucia Claire and Anthony Diallo. Next our expert spellers will head to the cluster bee, to compete with other middle schools, and then potentially the citywide spelling bee. The competition will be heated, but armed with their dictionaries and their love of words, the spellers will valiantly proceed into the territory of new and unfamiliar words!

Several classes of ninth graders visited Ford’s Theatre on Thursday to see the play Twelve Angry Men. The play is very familiar to students, who read the text in ninth grade and also saw the school play this year. The Reginald Rose play deals with a court case in which a young man is on trial for murder, and eight unnamed jurors must decide his fate and wade through their own biases, fears, and personal experiences to understand the truth of the case. The theme of justice pervades many of the ninth grade readings including a research project on famous historical trials.